Features of the Gateway FPD2185W 21" LCD
Gateway has the best 21" LCD you are likely to find in their FPD2185W 21" LCD. Sporting a native resolution of 1680 x 1050, you can watch widescreen movies and have two documents side by side on the screen. Movie aficionados, the Gateway FPD2185W 21" LCD is "the" media display you have been looking for. It has all you could ask for in a media monitor picture-in-picture allows you to work on a document and watch a movie or TV at the same time. A dedicated quick swap button allows you to change between the main and PIP windows at the flick of a button.
Video playback quality is awesome on the Gateway 21" display thanks in part to the high-end DCDi by Faroudja with Advanced Video Smoothing Technology on composite and S-Video inputs. You can easily change the screen orientation between landscape and portrait mode by swiveling the display on the stand. The stand of the display is the best I have seen. Not only can you easily adjust it for height and angle, but you can adjust the screen left and right on the swiveling base as well. No matter the angle you sit at for comfort you can always have the display directly in front of you.
The Gateway FPD2185W 21" LCD is also the first display I have tested that comes with an integrated HDCP port. Four powered USB ports add much needed expansion to your desktop allowing you to plug a variety of peripherals in on your desktop rather than crawling under the desk to connect them. The technical specs of the Gateway FPD2185W 21" LCD are as follows:
- Aspect Ratio: 16:10
- Brightness: 300 cd/m2
- Colors: 16.7 million
- Connections and Inputs
• Analog (VGA): 15-pin mini d-sub VGA
• Digital (DVI-D): 24-pin DVD-D (supports 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i). Includes HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)
• Composite video
• S-Video
• Component Y Pb Pr (supports 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i)
• AC power input
• USB 2.0 B-type (PC input)
• USB 2.0 A-type (PC input) - Contrast Ratio: 1000:1
- Dimensions(WxHxD): 19.45" x 15.35" x 8.2"
- Frequency Horizontal: 31-81 KHzVertical: 56-76 Hz
- Lamp Type/Life: 50,000 hours
- Model Number: FPD2185W
- Panel Type: 21-inch viewable
TFT active matrix
S-PVA
Anti-glare coating - Pixel Pitch: 0.0106 x 0.0106 inches (0.270 mm x 0.270 mm)
- Pixel Resolution: 1680 x 1050(native) (75 Hz)
- Response Time 8 ms (gray to gray)
- Viewing Angles 178° horizontal, 178° vertical
- Weight 18.74 lbs. (includes height-adjustable stand)
Gateway FPD2185W 21" LCD in Use
The fantastic Gateway FPD2185W 21" LCD was tested on my test system with the following specs:
- CPU: AMD FX-60
- Hard Drive: Samsung 250GB
- RAM:OCZ PC4000 DDR Gold Edition GX XTC 3-4-3-8, 2GB (2x 1 GB)
- Power supply: PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 1KW
- Mainboard: ECS Elitegroup KA1 MVP Extreme
- OS: Windows XP Pro SP2
- Display: Gateway FPD2185W 21" LCD
- Video Card: ATI X1900 XTX
- Video Drivers: ATI Catalyst 6.5
I will be comparing the Gateway FPD2185W 21" LCD to my Eizo CE240W 24" LCD. To test the mettle of the Gateway display I watched movies and played some popular PC games on it as well. When playing high-end 3D games on the Gateway LCD I noticed absolutely no ghosting or smearing of the image on screen. The Gateway was noticeably less bright than the Eizo but the contrast was just as good. The fact that the Gateway has the same 1000:1 contrast ratio as the Eizo but gives up 150 cd/m2 in brightness explains these findings.
I used DisplayMate to determine how well the Gateway display performed and it did superbly. It had not one dead pixel and the screen was uniformly bright with no noticeably brighter or darker areas. Color saturations were excellent as were the gray level transitions. For real world testing I played some Quake 4 and FEAR. While I missed the improved brightness of my Eizo, the Gateway's ability to hold its own against a display costing twice as much was very impressive. The fast 8ms response time eliminated ghosting, smearing and tearing of the image no matter how fast the action got on both games.
Movie watching is where the Gateway FPD2185W 21" LCD excels and even edges ahead of the reference Eizo display. Superb video reproduction and silky smooth playback make the Gateway display the choice for movie watching. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring has never looked so good as it did on the Gateway. I touched on the monitor stand a bit before, but I want to get into more detail on it now.
